Was Zhucheng area in Shandong a lake in ancient times? Why is there a large number of dinosaur fossils concentrated in that place?

Zhucheng, known as "China Dragon City", is rich in dinosaur fossil resources. Up to now, there are as many as 30 dinosaur fossils in the city, which is an important origin of late Cretaceous dinosaur fossils represented by the large hadrosaurs in China and occupies a very important position in dinosaur research in China and even the world.

In the countryside around Zhucheng, dinosaur fossil fragments can be seen everywhere on the hills that walk in the wild. In flat areas, dinosaur fossils can be dug up 3-4 meters below the soil layer. According to local people, a few years ago, some villagers took digging dinosaur fossils as their profession, and the scattered fossils dug out were sold for 20-40 yuan/kg.

According to relevant information, this area was an ocean in ancient times, which obviously doesn't make sense. If dinosaurs were animals living in water, they would retreat to the sea with the sea water when the sea water gradually receded, and dinosaurs would not be extinct, even today. If it is a terrestrial creature, there will be no extinction of various large-scale dinosaurs in this sea area at the same time.

Zhucheng is located at the junction of Taiyi Mountain and Jiaowei Plain in Shandong Peninsula, with high terrain in the south and low terrain in the north. From south to east, it is a mountainous area, and the basin fluctuates greatly, with western, central and northern parts. It belongs to the Weihe plain in the south of Jiaolai alluvial plain, with low mountains and hills on its edge. Depression and water surface are distributed all over the country, which is equivalent to a small basin.

Even in today's era, once the Sanlizhuang Reservoir in the south of Zhucheng District breaks its banks, the whole Zhucheng District will be flooded. If the strong mine reservoir in the southwest of Zhucheng bursts, most of the whole Zhucheng area will be affected, not to mention that in ancient times, once it was flooded, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Were ancient cities low-lying basins or lakes? If it is a low-lying basin, it means that most dinosaurs lived on land, but they didn't necessarily grow completely in this area, maybe hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away. Because the flood with a lot of sediment flooded this area, a large number of dinosaur bodies went down the river and were finally washed here. When the flood subsided, some dinosaur bodies ran aground in Gaofu, and a large number of dinosaur bodies were directly buried by silt, and low-lying areas were also silted to the ground.

In ancient times, if this area belonged to a lake, there must be lush vegetation around the lake, a large number of terrestrial dinosaurs lived in it, and a large number of aquatic dinosaurs existed in the lake, so this area must have suffered from drought for years, the lake dried up, a large number of plants withered, dinosaurs died of dehydration, and eventually led to dinosaur extinction.

Zhucheng is a famous "Dragon City in China", because a large number of dinosaur fossils have been found here, including the famous Shandong Dragon, Tyrannosaurus Rex in Zhucheng, and Ceratosaurus in China.

Dinosaurs discovered in Zhucheng, Shandong Province lived at the end of the Cretaceous from 72 million to 66 million years ago. How do we know? This information comes from the strata where dinosaur fossils were found, namely the Wang Shi Formation. Wang Formation belongs to freshwater lake facies sedimentary strata, containing red glutenite mixed with clay and green sand shale, with a thickness of about 200 meters.

Legend: Dinosaur fossils were found in Zhucheng, and the pictures came from the Internet.

Although it is a lacustrine sedimentary stratum, it does not mean that the Cretaceous Zhucheng is a huge lake like Qinghai Lake. After all, dinosaurs lived on land. If it is a big lake, where did dinosaurs come from?

Geologically, the Cretaceous city is located in the south of Jiaolai basin, which is completely in continental deposition. The Cretaceous Jiaolai Basin was full of rivers, lakes and lush forests, which provided the most ideal habitat for the survival of dinosaurs.

Legend: Ecological restoration of Zhucheng in Cretaceous, with pictures from the Internet.

Compared with today, the climate of Zhucheng in Cretaceous is warmer and wetter, with obvious dry season and rainy season appearing alternately, and traces can be found in the strata. Under the favorable natural climate conditions, Zhucheng became a paradise for dinosaurs. In the open land, you can see Shandong Dragon and Zhucheng Dragon whose body length is over15m, and China Ceratosaurus with a big horn and a sharp tip. There are some smaller dinosaurs in the forest, such as Zhucheng Ceratosaurus, Coincident Ceratosaurus, Microcephalosaurus and so on.

Legend: The giant Shandong Dragon, the picture comes from the Internet.

Legend: China Ceratosaurus with a big head and a big shield, the picture comes from the Internet.

Legend: Tyrannosaurus China's relative, Tyrannosaurus Zhucheng, the picture comes from the Internet.

As for why so many dinosaur fossils can be found in Zhucheng, it is because the bodies of dinosaurs were brought into the lake by running water, and then sank to the bottom of the lake, covered with sediment and other sediments, which made it easier to form fossils. Many dinosaur fossils found in Zhucheng are still caused by flowing water deposition.

Therefore, there were many lakes in Zhucheng at the end of Cretaceous, which were particularly important for the formation and preservation of dinosaur fossils. The underground of Zhucheng is the Cretaceous Park. I hope more dinosaurs can be found here!

Legend: At present, some dinosaurs found in Zhucheng are compared, and the pictures come from the Internet.

Longjixi, the origin of Zhucheng's "Great Zhucheng Dragon" (photo by Qingqing)

The ancient times in Zhucheng, Shandong Province referred to here are in the late Cretaceous, about 65 million years ago.

In the Late Cretaceous, Zhucheng was called "Zhulai Basin" or "Laizhu Basin" in geological history. This basin area, from Zhucheng to Laiyang, is named after Zhucheng and Laiyang by contemporary people, and is referred to as "Zhucheng Basin" or "Laiwu Basin".

This basin runs east-west. This is described in geology. Therefore, Zhucheng area in Shandong Province was a basin in lake and swamp area in ancient times (Late Cretaceous).

Since it is a basin, it is very likely that a large number of dinosaur fossils are buried here. It may also be transported in different places, and its scope is also within the "Zhuhai Basin".

"Giant Pearl City Dragon" skeleton (photo by speaker Qing Qing)

Dinosaur fossils found in Zhucheng: most dinosaurs produced in Zhucheng area are hadrosaurs.

Hadrosaurs are amphibians and reptiles. It spends most of its time walking on land and then landing on its hind legs. It also swims in the water. It has webbed limbs. Especially when attacked by Tyrannosaurus rex, it will quickly run into the water to escape.

Amphibious duck-billed dragon (speaker Qing Qing was taken from the pictorial of "Giant Shandong Dragon" in Japan)

The "Zhulai Basin" is very suitable for the hadrosaurs to live here. Duck-billed dragon is a vegetarian, eating some plant leaves and small fish and shrimp in the water.

Why are carnivorous dragons rare in Zhucheng area? This is a lake swamp, which is not suitable for terrestrial dinosaurs who can't swim. The reason why they came to the lake basin swamp was to get vegetarian dinosaurs.

The above conditions contributed to the production of a large number of dinosaur fossils in Zhucheng area, mainly hadrosaurs. There are so many dinosaur fossils here. It is likely that dinosaurs suffered from volcanic eruptions and floods and migrated from northwest to southeast (from the trend of dinosaur fossils), and Zhucheng area is just the edge of "Zhulai Basin". So a large number of dinosaurs were moved here and stopped at the edge of the basin.

The formation of dinosaur fossils is the sudden burial of dinosaurs. Its body was volatilized by volatile substances, leaving bones with high calcium content not rotting. At this time, many "honeycomb eyes" emerged in the bones. These "honeycomb eyes" are full of non-perishable substances such as sediments, which eventually turn dinosaur bones into fossils.

In short, the late Cretaceous in Zhucheng area in ancient times was the "Zhulai Basin" in the lake and swamp area. The reason why a large number of dinosaur fossils are buried here is because it is the edge of the "Zhu Lai Basin". After the dinosaurs were transported here, they had to stay here.

Zhucheng City, Shandong Province is the hometown of dragon phobia, and there is a place called Dinosaur Creek, where the world's largest hadrosaur fossil and the largest dinosaur fossil group have been unearthed.

At the end of Cretaceous, the asteroid ring hit the earth, which led to the platform activation, the inclination of the earth axis, and the laminar thrust of the crater magma shock wave, forming the Pacific Rim fault zone and Tethys tectonic domain.

Hydrocarbons formed by the polymerization of metal hydrogen ions in the laminar flow of magma shock waves in the crater degrade buried paleontological corpses and form oil; If these deposits are not buried in the crater magma shock wave laminar flow, the oil field will volatilize to form "asphalt lake"; Some "asphalt lakes" (in Colombia) will produce paleontological skeleton fossils!

Carbon or carbonate polymerized from metal hydrogen ions in small and medium-sized craters buried paleontological corpses and formed solid fossils.

Zhucheng is located in the crater of the East China Sea. The dinosaur bodies whose "buttocks" flowed to the northwest were intercepted by the "high temperature and low pressure trough" and buried to form bone fossils (the flesh melted at high temperature). In this way, today's Zhucheng dinosaur skeleton fossils saw dinosaurs running southeast!

In fact, there are bone fossils, solid fossils and scar fossils on the west bank of Xiashan Reservoir in the north of Zhucheng City.

It should be the conclusion and result of a geographical change of the sea!

Zhucheng is a famous treasure house of dinosaur fossils, which is rich in dinosaur fossil resources. Since the 1960s, Zhucheng dinosaur fossils have been excavated three times on a large scale. The third scientific excavation in 2008 achieved remarkable results. It has been confirmed by Chinese and foreign experts that the dinosaur fossils unearthed in Zhucheng area are rare in the world for their long history, large scale and full variety. This is a rare area with dinosaur bone fossils, dinosaur eggs and dinosaur footprint fossils at the same time, which has the best of five worlds:

-The largest dinosaur fossil burial site in the world

-The largest dinosaur fossil group in the world.

-The largest dinosaur footprint in the world

-The largest hadrosaur skeleton group in the world

-One of the richest dinosaur species in the world.

Dinosaurs in Zhucheng can be traced back to Cretaceous, between Jurassic and Paleogene, from 6.5438+0.455 million years ago to 65.5 million years ago (with an error of 4 million years). Cretaceous is the last period of Mesozoic, which lasted 70 million years, but Phanerozoic is a very long period. The extinction event at the end of Cretaceous is the dividing line between Mesozoic and Cenozoic.

Zhucheng Dinosaur Culture Museum is divided into three exhibition gardens, namely Zhucheng Dinosaur Museum, Cretaceous Dinosaur Museum and Zangjiazhuang Storm Wang Long Museum.

Zhucheng dinosaur museum was built in Zhucheng dinosaur park, with a construction area of about 5400 square meters. It is the largest dinosaur museum in northern China. Its architectural style is unique, overlooking like eight dragons embracing each other, giving people a sense of soaring; It looks like an ancient Egyptian museum. There are five halls and one room in the museum, namely announcement hall, specimen hall, screen movie hall and Cretaceous exhibition hall, which are all open now. The largest hadrosaurs dinosaur fossil in the world-"Giant Pearl City Dragon" (height 9. 1m, length 16.6m) is displayed in the herbarium, which is praised as "the world dragon king" by dinosaur experts. At the same time, there are dinosaur femurs which are said to bring good luck (there is a saying that "touching the keel will make you happy for life") and dinosaur eggs.

There are volcanoes next to Zhucheng. In fact, dinosaurs were everywhere at that time, but the dinosaur bones in Zhucheng were well preserved!

So Jingzhi is so close to Zhucheng. What was Jingzhi at that time? There are also big pebbles in Jingzhiling.

Relatively speaking ... Zhucheng ... in ancient times ... house prices were cheaper.